by Benny Morris
behave[ed] like a demented schoolmaster screaming at a guilty school boy,”
Curzon wrote. After Curzon left the room, Poincaré came out to apologize,
“explaining that he had been exasperated at the charge that France had aban-
doned her Ally.” But then “Poincaré once more insisted on . . . submission to
Kemal.”499
Suddenly the lone foreign power facing off against the Nationalists, Britain
and her leaders were forced to confront the bankruptcy of their own thinking.
As the cabinet put it on September 23, “It must be recognized that the policy
originally adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers at the Paris Peace
Conference, according to which the Turks could not be trusted in future to
rule races alien to them in nationality and religion . . . had failed.” The British made ready to acquiesce in unimpeded Turkish sovereignty over the whole
of Turkey and unsupervised rule over its non- Muslim minorities.500 Within
days the British, in the Mudanya agreement, would also concede the princi ple
of Turkish sovereignty over Constantinople and Eastern Thrace.
The immediate precipitant to the agreement was a limited Kemalist push
into the Neutral Zone at Çanak. Swinging northwards from Smyrna, Kemal
threatened to cross into Thrace and drive on Constantinople. His troops
pushed into the Neutral Zone, and the British fired warning salvos. But the
Kemalists did not retire.501 In London, the cabinet was reluctant to go to war:
Harington had few troops, the Trea sury was broke, and the public had
tired of war— “Stop This New War,” ran a headline in the Daily Mail on
September 18.502 Nonetheless, the government authorized General Charles
Harington to issue an ultimatum demanding Turkish withdrawal.503 But
Harington held off, saving the day. The Nationalists stayed put, and the two
sides agreed to talk.504 The upshot was the Mudanya armistice.
After Smyrna
Smyrna convinced Western observers that Turkey’s rulers were set on “the
elimination of all Christians from its borders,” Barton, the head of the Amer-
ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, wrote. “This has been
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
largely accomplished already. The remnant will be absorbed into the Turkish
race, deported from the country, or killed.” He added, “The government has
[also] determined that the American missionary work shall cease.”505 Rendel
agreed that “the Kemalists mean to expel or deport all Christians remaining
in territory over which they obtain control.”506
In the fall of 1922, Ankara deci ded that the final disappearance of Asia
Minor’s Christians—at this point, overwhelmingly Greeks— would be accom-
plished not by massacre and death march but by straightforward expulsion
to Greece. Smyrna had pointed the way. Kemal’s timing also was linked to the
forthcoming Lausanne peace conference. The Turks sought to pres ent the Al-
lies with a fait accompli: if there were no minorities left in Turkey, there
would be no need in the treaty for a troublesome minority- protection clause.
Gates, the missionary, summed up the Turkish attitude heading into the
talks as, “We will show the world what the Turk[s] can do when left to
themselves.”507 (As it turns out, the Treaty of Lausanne would include
minority- protection provisions, but without teeth.)
Immediately after retaking Smyrna, Ankara instructed the Turkish author-
ities in central and eastern Anatolia to expel the remaining Christians. Unlike
the Greeks deported in 1921– early 1922, these were to be directed toward
the ports rather than to the interior. Slyly, the order was framed as a grant of
“permission” to leave the country.508 The announcement went out to the au-
thorities in the provinces in early October 1922. This was “ really an order
for them all to get out,” a missionary in Samsun wrote. The town’s mutesarrif
said so explic itly to officers of the USS Overton.509
The Turks were less forthcoming with the Allied plenipotentiaries in Con-
stantinople, preferring a combination of disinformation and brazen men-
dacity. Refet Pasha, Ankara’s representative, told Bristol that there was “no
order for expulsion” and that such an order was, in any case, unnecessary as
“all of the Christians . . . had been anxious to leave for some time.” Ankara
was merely acceding to their wishes.510 Refet also claimed, in somewhat con-
tradictory terms, that “his government was making efforts to induce these
Christians who had already left the interior cities for the coast to return to their homes” and stay.511 The interior minister sent a circular to governors, generals,
and the press stating that expelling Christians was “contrary to [the govern-
ment’s] decision” and that “compulsion should not be” exercised.512
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
But neither diplomats nor Christian inhabitants were taken in.513 They re-
called Constantinople’s fake 1915 orders instructing officials to treat deportees humanely. Even Bristol admitted that the current instructions were “ really . . .
an order of expulsion.”514 He was “certain that [the] Nationalist Government
wishes [to] get rid of entire Greek and Armenian population.”515 The French
high commissioner, General Maurice Pellé, said he had heard that “in all parts
of Anatolia from Mersina to Trebizond” Christian men aged eigh teen to forty-
five were to be “made prisoners,” and the rest were to be “expelled from the
country.”516 Bristol complained that this would “create over a million refu-
gees” and constitute an obstacle to “a settlement.”517 But the Allies had no
leverage with which to negotiate a better outcome.
Along the Black Sea coast, the Christians were bluntly told that they had
thirty days to leave, other wise they would be marched to the interior. All knew
what that meant. The order encompassed the Christians working in mis-
sionary institutions and the many thousands of orphans in their care. Rum-
bold, prob ably exaggerating the number of Christians left to expel, thought
the order would affect “over one million Christians in Eastern Anatolia.”518
Throughout Anatolia, the orders received the approval and reinforcement of
the Muslim public. Newspapers lambasted the Christians, and neighbors threat-
ened them with massacre. In November 1922 Jackson cata loged a litany of perse-
cutions, big and small. Christians, he said, were excessively taxed, “beaten,
robbed and [left] with no redress. A per sis tent boycott exists against them, preventing them from selling anything . . . at any price; also, what ever they are
obliged to purchase from a Moslem they are forced to pay from ten to twenty
times the value thereof.” In short, “ there is a clear understanding among the
Turkish authorities and the Mohammedan population that every thing
pos si ble is to be done to oblige the Christians to leave.”519 Turks wishing to
purchase the departees’ houses were threatened with reprisals.520
The exile was to be a repeat of the Cilician Armenians’ November–
December 1921 rush to Mersin, Alexandretta, and subsequent seaborne
flight, but on a vaster scale and spread out over a longer timeline. As
; Christians— mostly Greeks, but also some Armenians and Assyrians— headed
from the interior to the Black Sea and Mediterranean, a missionary reported
the “wildest scenes”: “all roads leading to Samsun are crowded with long lines
of refugees laden with bundles, many with oxcarts piled high.” The exceptions,
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
of course, were army- aged men. “Men are not even allowed to come with the
refugee columns,” the missionary wrote. “Only women, children and the in-
firm are reaching Samsun.”521 Greek villa gers near Trabzon reportedly were
loath to leave their homes, but “their Turkish neighbors . . . urge them to leave in order to get their property.”522 Most headed for the ports, but a few journeyed by land southward, toward Aleppo.523 Jackson reported that the latter
were sometimes given the option of staying put—if they converted.524
Tens of thousands of Greek refugees packed Samsun, waiting for boats out.
Occasionally, they were harassed or attacked by Turks. One witness saw “a
lot of young Turks stoning the refugees in the square near the customs house.
Later . . . an Armenian doctor . . . reported that a lot of young Turkish boys . . .
had been assaulting refugees around the Armenian Church . . . until the
police . . . put a stop to it.”525 The streets were crowded with women selling
house hold goods. An American naval officer commented, “The pres ent . . .
stir reminds one of biblical times, [the] harassing of the Christians. It seems
strange to me that we Christian nations should . . . countenance the denial of
[this] part of the world to Christians. . . . The Christians are calm but down-
cast.” A missionary told the officer that the Turks were “already beginning to
squabble amongst themselves over the spoils.”526
Nasty incidents were reported from Mersin. An American officer wrote,
“The Turkish military entered the churches and refugee dumps and take
young girls. Five were taken from [the Georgian Greek] Church last night.
Three returned this morning and complained to the Spanish consul. . . . The
other two have not yet returned.” The officer later met one of the girls: “She
appeared about twenty years of age and was a cumberly [ sic, comely?], buck-some lass. She stated . . . she was taken [by four gendarmes] to a Turkish
house where there were two more gendarmes and a civilian. She . . . said they
used her repeatedly, until this morning when she was released.” Another of
the girls, a twenty- year- old Greek from Denizli, told the same story. Two of
her rapists were soldiers, “Suleiman Onbachi and Imzebeit Tehaouchou.”
The American officer was also told that “bands of civilians” waylaid Chris-
tian women who went to use lavatories outside the refugee compounds. The
assailants “would throw a shawl over the woman’s head and drag her to their
harems. . . . At the rate of the stories I have heard the harems should now be
overflowing.” On November 28 the officer recorded the text of a Turkish
poster hung on Christian houses:
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
To the Greeks and Armenians. Ingrate Criminals of Mersina. The Na-
tionalists [ sic] Government has pardoned you for the innumerable atroc-
ities against Mussulmen during the [French] occupation. . . .
This
noble pardon has not been appreciated, you have remained tranquil but
continued with traitors’ acts against this government and nation. . . . You
have burned towns and villages and . . . soiled the honor of our daughters
and wives. . . . All the blood in our veins cries unmercifully for re-
venge. . . . Mussulmen do not want to see you in their country. . . . Go
or you will know the . . . Bloody sword.
The American officer, who described himself as formerly “pro- Turk,” now
considered them “savages and barbarians.527
The harassment and incitement were intended to induce emigration, but
they also pushed Turks to the edge of massacre. The government hoped to
avoid any such incidents during the sensitive peace talks. The Nationalists had
to walk a fine line, which in practice meant enraging the populace and then
reining it in. Thus the following summary, from Jackson, of Adana and Antep
newspapers pushing anti- Christian propaganda in late 1922: “Moslem hearts
filled with hatred [of ] Armenians and Greeks who are accused [of ] destroying
Turkish homes, violating women, girls, imprisoning, maiming. Murdering . . .
intriguing with the British and Greeks . . . burning Smyrna. . . . Calling Christians villains, assassins, serpents, insisting they leave the country.”528 Such
rhe toric helped to inspire a Muslim mob that invaded the Christian neigh-
borhoods of Adana in mid- November, but Turkish police drove the rioters
out.529
Toward the end of 1922 NER workers made haste to ship out orphans
quickly.530 The missionaries knew that, if left behind, the orphans would fall
into Turkish clutches. The Turks were rounding up orphans, especially those
under fourteen years old, and placing them in Muslim orphanages or homes.
Occasionally the Turks “poached” orphans directly from NER institutions.
A New York Times correspondent likened the Turkish harvest of Christian
orphans to a revival of “the janissary system.” Dr. Cevdet Bey, Ankara’s
Commissioner for Deportees, forcibly took girls from NER institutions to
serve supper in his home and “kept” them there “till morning.”531
Ankara was eager to rid Anatolia of its Christians before the Lausanne
Conference ended.532 By December 1922, a month into the conference, the
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
Turkish officials in Crete with a child described in the source caption as the “sole survivor” of an alleged Christian massacre of Turks.
evacuation was in full swing. Jaquith described what he saw: “Death is over-
taking thousands of the children and the aged infirm on the frozen roads of
Anatolia. . . . Moving over the worst mud roads in the world, I saw a crowd
of broken civilians more depressing than an army in hard- pressed retreat.
Women about to become mothers tramped in snow up to their knees. Tired
children dropped weary by the wayside, and girls of tender years bore
men’s burdens.”533
At the ports the waiting refugees suffered intimidation, robbery, and
vio lence.534 In March 1923 a group of Turkish children attacked a party of
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
Armenian orphans out for a walk in Samsun. Turkish mothers joined in.535
An American officer recorded a vicious assault on a group of Greeks de-
fending themselves against an “intoxicated Turkish soldier” who had shot one
of them. A “gang of hamals, boot blacks, police, Turkish soldiers and even”
women attacked the Greeks and beat them. Some 200 Greeks were arrested,
and 1,500 were driven out of a shelter onto a beach “without cover.” There
the attack continued. Eight women and girls were taken “away.”536
Other incidents were reported at Mersin’s refugee encampments.537
“Practically all” the refugees heading southward for Mersin, Alexandretta
and Aleppo were robbed en route by “gendarmes or civil bandits.” A few
were murdered, and “ women a
nd girls violated.”538 Greek refugees often
wore cheap clothes— finery invited depredation.539
In the ports Western eyes kept the authorities and everyday Turks in check.
But in the interior brutality was common. Troops, gendarmes, and brigands
harassed and murdered, whether because they wished to speed up Greek de-
parture or because such be hav ior was simply endemic. In April 1923 near
Havza, nineteen young villa gers were murdered.540 In May, at Gurumza, villa-
gers and brigands killed between sixty and ninety Greeks.541
The degree of refugees’ suffering was determined to an extent by class. The
poor reached exit ports— Giresun, Ordu, Ünye, and others—on foot. Those
who could afford to came on freight trains or in carriages. From the trains they
might be herded by stick- wielding soldiers to makeshift camps or directly to
the harbor.542 On the steamers the moneyed minority enjoyed cabins, but most
refugees languished on crowded decks. The conditions were often appalling.
One boat carry ing 2,000 passengers from the Black Sea to Piraeus arrived with
1,600 cases of typhus, smallpox, and cholera. A U.S. Navy officer called it a
“death ship.”543
Most Anatolian refugees subsisted for weeks or months in camps on the
edges of ports, enduring hunger and disease as they waited for a chance to
ship out. At Mersin a large number lived in an empty factory on the outskirts
of the city. They lived on dark bread and soup dispensed by American mis-
sionaries and a Greek aid group and on cabbage and mustard they
collected from the fields. “It is a common sight to see a little weak, anemic,
dirty and emaciated girl hovering around a charcoal fire trying to cook a few
leaves of mustard or cabbage in a tin cup,” an American naval officer wrote.544
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
The locals and the mayor complained about the scourge of beggars.545 The
French at one point offered to transport the Mersin refugees to Morocco, Al-
giers, West Africa, but the refugees preferred “starvation . . . to a journey to
Morocco,” where they expected they would again be persecuted by Mus-
lims.546 The situation in Alexandretta was arguably even worse than in
